Thursday, January 7

We started the day with a time of refreshment. We haven’t really had time to connect as a group in a few days, so Pastor Ted began by giving us the schedule for the day, encouraging us from the word, and then we had some time to share some of our experiences and pray. Pastor Ebenezer prepared a delicious breakfast for us and then since we were close to the beach and it was too early to head to our first meeting, we went to dip our feet in the Indian Ocean. First though we prayed for Ebenezer, his family and his ministry.

Then it was off to see Pastor Vijay’s churches. We first met and saw the work of Pastor Vijay three years ago. At that time he had two village churches; the second one was on a dirt hill because they outgrew his house.

So we started off at the second church (the one that met on the dirt hill), and they were still meeting outside under a tent, but there was the foundation of a church that had been started! It’s great to see the believers still being faithful and new believers coming as well!

We then went to visit three other villages where Pastor Vijay has been laboring. All three are very strong Hindu villages but Pastor Vijay has persevered and each village has at least one believing family! These families have opened their homes for a meeting place for the pastor to continue his ministry. Others are beginning to come and listen and are slowly starting to believe. Many though are still attached to their idols and are having a difficult time letting go of them, so in each village we preached the gospel message, encouraged them to turn from their idols, and shared our testimonies with them. Pastor Ted had worked out a schedule so each person had a chance to share either a testimony or a message. Since we knew many were non-believers, we made it a point to preach about salvation through Jesus Christ alone.

We had a time of fellowship over dinner with the Indian pastors; some even had travelled from different parts of AP to see us and share about their ministries. It’s always good to see the former GHBC students still laboring.